


I Hate You, but You Understand Me

by slytherinintj13



Category: Villains Series - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Acceptance, Alliances, Asexual Character, Asexual Victor Vale, Asexuality, Asexuality Spectrum, Bittersweet, Bittersweet Ending, Brighton Penitentiary, Friends to Enemies, Hatred, Lockland University, Merit - Freeform, Not Romance, Other, Self-Acceptance, Understanding, Uneasy Allies, Villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 11:46:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20638640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytherinintj13/pseuds/slytherinintj13
Summary: A post-Vengeful fix-it in which Victor and Eli reach an understanding.





	I Hate You, but You Understand Me

**Author's Note:**

> The section in bold is taken directly from V.E. Schwab's writing; it is not mine. Additionally, all characters and settings belong to V.E. Schwab, the only thing I own is the plot of this fic.

There he was, just beyond the shiny gold dress draping the slim figure of Marcella Riggins. Eli. Part of Victor was tempted to abandon his path towards Marcella, who stood at the front of the large, grand white marble room, a glass of champagne in hand, demanding the attention of everyone present, but Victor knew better. He would have his chance to speak to Eli. He tore his eyes away from his nemesis and refocused on the current threat, weaving his way through the crowd to get closer. Every once in a while, his eyes flicked back to Eli--he couldn’t help it--and he noticed they moved in near-perfect symmetry. Even after all these years, they still connected, each a rippled reflection of the other. 

Now, Victor was close enough to use his power. He clenched his fist, focusing on the nerves he could sense--the back of her spine, the tips of her fingers, the backs of her hands, her temples--and he unleashed a wave of pain strong enough to rival his first death. His knee buckled, but Marcella didn’t so much as flinch. It was then that Victor noticed the shine around her, and he realized she must be using another EO for protection. There was no reason to waste his energy, so he quickly reigned his power back in, took a deep breath, and stood to scan the crowd. If he couldn’t take out the target, he had to take out her protector. 

As Victor searched, Eli got closer to Marcella, now only a few feet away. He couldn’t hear what they were saying over all the chatter, but he saw the conversation for what it was: a distraction. He quickly returned to looking for the protector, and soon enough, he saw a glimmer of that familiar shine up on the balcony overlooking the room. The shine seemed to radiate from a man in a suit who wore dark sunglasses, probably so others wouldn’t know where he was looking. But Victor wasn’t just anyone, and he knew Marcella was the type who was smart enough to ensure she would always have protection. That knowledge, combined with the angle of his head and neck, meant he could only be looking out for Marcella, meaning he wasn’t paying attention to himself. 

Victor took action. He fought against the shining forcefield around the man, pushing all the pain he could onto him, and steered him towards the edge of the balcony. Victor fell to his knees and clenched his jaw so as not to cry out in pain as his power took a toll on him.  _ Come on _ , he thought.  _ Just a little bit more _ . By now, the man was right at the edge of the balcony, and Victor just needed to find one more spot, the one that would give out and send him over the edge. He settled on the man’s left knee, and with a sharp breath, he focused on that point. With that, the man toppled over the edge and down, down towards the ground, where he landed with a thud. His glassy eyes, set in soon-to-be waxy skin, stared up at the ceiling. Marcella’s guard was gone. Victor exhaled, gathering himself, when he heard a scream. He swirled and saw Eli, pressed against Marcella, struggling for dominance. Their clothes, their skin, and the floor around them began to erode, and Victor knew the building would collapse. Destroying the floor, upon which the pillars supporting the ceiling stood, was like destroying a person’s skeleton, the foundation upon which all else is built. 

The floor caved. Down they went, disappearing beneath Victor’s line of sight as they fell. Victor rushed to the edge of the large hole, where large chunks of what used to be the floor had previously occupied. Marcella’s body lay motionless at the center of the pit, and Eli stood above it, examining as his body weaved itself back together. Eli looked up, his dark brown eyes catching Victor’s own pale blue ones. 

**_Run_, thought Victor. **

** _Chase me_ ** **, replied Eli.**

Victor descended the slope of rubble into the hole, his mind only focused on Eli. However, when he reached the bottom, he was met only with the limp body of Marcella Riggins. Eli was nowhere to be seen. With a frustrated groan, he began to climb out of the hole, scanning the room for Detective Stell before emerging from the pit. Afterwards, he quickly fled the building; he didn’t want to be anywhere nearby when the authorities had gathered their wits and began to ask questions. 

_ Where am I? _ Victor thought as he entered the dark and dingy building he’d seen Eli go into. He was standing in some kind of corridor in what seemed to be a warehouse, complete with flickering lights and tarps concealing unfinished doorways. He slowed to listen to the noises around him as he crept down the corridor, past each room. Then, he heard voices--one of them was unmistakably Eli’s. Victor would know that voice anywhere; it had haunted his dreams once, back when he was in Brighton Penitentiary. 

Victor crept forward, and as he got closer, he heard another voice, one he didn’t recognize. Finally, he reached the room from which the voices were coming, and after standing in the hallways for a moment to determine what exactly was going on, he walked into the room, composed as ever. 

The sight of Eli tied down on a hospital bed both excited him and displeased him. The man in the lab coat standing over him, scalpel in hand, very much displeased him. The man looked up, his small round eyes locked on Victor as he came closer. 

“What,” Victor demanded, “are you doing?”

“I am studying, I am doing this,” he waved to the room around him, “for the advancement of science,” the man chuckled in reply. Victor clenched his hand, forcing pain onto the man, but something strange happened. Or rather, nothing happened, and that was strange. “Ah, another EO,” the man observed. “Fascinating! As curious as I am about your ability, you won’t be able to demonstrate it here. You see, I have invented a serum, which I used on Eli here, that subdues an EO’s powers.”

“But I have not received this serum,” Victor replied skeptically. 

“No, but it can also be used in a gaseous form. It flows through these air vents as we speak.” Despite his powers not working, Victor was still unsure whether or not the man was lying. The man, who was presumably a doctor, must have noticed, for he said “Come, watch this,” and went back to Eli. He plunged the scalpel into Eli’s torso, and Victor waited for the skin to heal, but it never did. It was unnerving. “So you see,” said the doctor, removing the scalpel from where it was embedded in Eli’s skin and leaving it on a nearby table. “Your powers are useless here.” 

“It would seem so,” Victor replied, his mind spinning. In the background, behind the doctor, he noticed Eli reach for the scalpel the man had so carelessly left nearby and begin to cut through the restraint binding his left hand. Victor knew the beady-eyed doctor wanted to take him, too, and he was not going to let that happen. As much as he didn’t want Eli to be free, he knew the distraction would be necessary, and so, for the second time that night, he found himself on the same side as his former friend. 

The doctor, eager to get back to work, turned back to Eli once more, but this time, Eli was ready. As the doctor bent over to examine Eli’s wound, Eli jammed the scalpel in his free hand into the doctor’s neck, right into the carotid artery. Within moments, the man fell to the ground, and Victor knew that in a few more, he would be dead. Now, he had to focus on Eli. 

“It seems I caught you,” Victor said, amused, as Eli freed the rest of his restraints and stood before him. 

“That you did,” Eli acknowledged with a slight nod of his head. “But to what end?” he asked. 

“To finish what we started,” replied Victor. “We are on equal footing here, stripped of our powers. Let’s finish this the way we started it: as two human boys, foolish enough to play god.”

Then, Eli pounced, his younger, fitter body easily slamming Victor’s to the ground. They wrestled, going back and forth as to who had the upper hand, until Eli eventually knelt above Victor, pinning him down. “Do it,” Victor challenged, his eyes glinting.

Eli tried. Really, he did. But he simply couldn’t do it. Not with a scalpel, and not with his bare hands. Even though they were enemies now, Victor had once been his friend. The only one who understood him, and likely the only one who ever would. He rolled off of the other man, panting hard, cursing himself for being weak. Victor sat up slowly, facing Eli with caution. “I can’t do it,” Eli said weakly. “I want to, but… I just can’t.” Both men stood, studying the other carefully, unsure what to make of this. They weren’t friends, and they both knew it. But Eli wasn’t going to kill Victor, and Victor knew that if he made a move against Eli, the other man’s younger, more athletic body would do away with his frail form easily. They were at an impasse. 

“We can walk away from this, you know,” Eli said softly. “All of it. The power, the responsibility.”

Victor nodded. It was his best chance at survival, and he might still be able to find a cure for his… illness. A permanent one. “Fine,” he said. “But we are not friends.”

“Not by a long shot.”

“I won’t look for you, Cardale,” Victor said, watching Eli flinch at the name. He never did find out why Eli hated it so much, what the scars of his back were from, or what happened to his father. It didn’t matter now, of course. He locked eyes with Eli before continuing. “But if I ever see you again, I will kill you.”

Eli nodded stiffly in understanding. “And I you,” he replied. 

“In that case,” Victor said, grabbing a few vials of the doctor’s serum, “I hope I never see you again.” With that, Victor turned and walked out the door, to where Mitch and Sydney would surely be waiting outside. 

He never saw Eli again, but he thought about their last encounter often. They may be enemies, but it was impossible to forget that before that, they were friends. The only ones who understood each other, no matter how dark and twisted the other’s thoughts were, and whether or not either man would admit it, that meant something. Just like their agreement; their mutual understanding that they could never work together or even be together briefly, they still needed each other. It was a duality most wouldn’t understand, but it made perfect sense to them, and that was all that mattered. It was their gloomy and sorrowful connection, and it could never be severed, even with a knife welded from years of hatred. They were Victor and Eli. It was just who they were. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can also find this on tumblr @not-a-fucking-sidekick.


End file.
